As Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion’s conflict-of-interest hearing began in Superior Court Monday, a lawyer for her accuser invoked the words of John F. Kennedy to stress the critical importance of public confidence in elected officials.

“No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards of ethical behaviour by those who conduct the public business,” the former U.S. president said a half-century ago, citing the duty of politicians to act with “unwavering integrity, absolute impartiality and complete devotion to the public interest.”

Mayor McCallion failed repeatedly on this front, said lawyer Thomas Richardson, who represents political activist Elias Hazineh. A long-time Mississauga resident, Mr. Hazineh has taken the mayor to court over an alleged violation of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act — marking the third time in her three-decade mayoralty that Ms. McCallion has been embroiled in conflict allegations.

A councillor cannot shut his or her eyes

The current case stems from a series of 2007 Peel council meetings, during which Ms. McCallion voted to hike regional development charges while grandfathering some projects under a lower rate. The proposed bylaw changes could have benefitted her son’s company, World Class Developments, which had been planning to build a hotel in downtown Mississauga, Mr. Hazineh says.

“The amendments had the potential to save WCD millions of dollars in development charges,” Mr. Richardson told the court, rejecting the mayor’s argument that the Peel bylaw was of general application and therefore outside the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act’s scope. “The development charges bylaw did not apply to the ratepayers at large, but rather only to those seeking to build.”

Mr. Richardson also dismissed the respondent’s notion that if found guilty, Ms. McCallion should be spared sanctions because she made an honest error in judgment.

“A councillor cannot shut his or her eyes… and thereby avoid the consequences of improper conduct,” he said, reminding the court that Ms. McCallion had “run afoul” of conflict-of-interest rules on two previous occasions.

The mayor — who was not in court Monday, but is slated to testify Thursday — was found guilty of violating conflict legislation in the early 1980s after participating in a debate on a land deal that could have benefitted her family. Then, at the conclusion of Mississauga’s judicial inquiry in 2011, she was found to have violated the spirit of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act by promoting her son’s hotel deal, a finding that prompted calls for sweeping legislative reforms.

If Justice John Sproat finds Ms. McCallion guilty in the latest case, she could be removed from office and barred from reoffering for seven years — although the 92-year-old mayor has already announced she will not run after the end of her current term in 2014.

The whole case could be thrown out, though, if the mayor’s lawyers are successful in arguing that Mr. Hazineh breached the six-week limitation period for filing his conflict action.

Lawyer Freya Kristjanson began Monday’s hearing with a motion asking that Mr. Hazineh be required to testify, citing a “credibility issue.” In a sworn affidavit, Mr. Hazineh said he first learned of the mayor’s alleged conflict after a lawyer publicly opined on the issue in late 2011. However, the National Post first exposed the potential conflict in the summer of 2010, when former councillor and McCallion foe Carolyn Parrish was contemplating a similar legal action against the mayor. In a pre-hearing cross-examination, Mr. Hazineh, a friend of Ms. Parrish, said he was “sure” he had seen the earlier Post article.

“There is a direct contradiction there between his affidavit and what he said on cross-examination,” Ms. Kristjanson said, suggesting Mr. Hazineh was a “straw man” for Mr. Parrish’s vendetta.